


Rocky Mountain High

by immortalsoldiers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (it's all mostly minor but destiel is the biggest ship here), (only that Cas is alive & Jack can come back), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Cryptids, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Established Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak, F/M, Gen, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Mostly Gen, Post-Canon, Snow, Team Free Will (Supernatural), Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), the ships are mostly minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28316856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalsoldiers/pseuds/immortalsoldiers
Summary: There have been sightings of a weird creature around a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado. Something is scaring skiers, ripping open backpacks, and raiding cabin refrigerators.Sam thinks it's a bear.Dean is determined to prove him wrong.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 10
Kudos: 212





	Rocky Mountain High

**Author's Note:**

> This is a spn secret santa 2020 gift for the lovely @theta8 on Tumblr!! It's my first case fic (ish) and the longest thing I've ever written, but it was really fun to write! (title from the John Denver song)

There’s something in the Rocky Mountains.

More specifically, there’s something trudging around a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado. It’s not doing much besides scaring innocent skiers, but it’s _there_ and it’s _something_ and Dean will take anything, at this point. The peace and quiet was nice, for a while—Chuck gone, Jack smoothing things over upstairs, Cas back—but if Dean is cooped up for one more day, he’s going to lose his mind.

Sam doesn’t share the sentiment, though, which becomes obvious when Dean slides into the seat across from him in the library. “A kid fell down the slope and broke an arm, Dean. That’s not a case.” He waves his hand at Dean’s laptop screen, where the article is pulled up.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, _Sherlock_ , except he says he _saw_ something that spooked him bad enough. Kid’s top of his class, pre-Olympic material, and he breaks an arm on the bunny slope? No way.” Dean shakes his head. “There’s something in those woods, I’m telling you.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Like a bear?”

“Would a bear stalk people until they leave their backpacks unattended and then rip it into shreds?”

“Looking for food? Yes.”

Dean tries again. “Would a bear sneak in the open back door of a cabin and raid the fridge while everyone is asleep?”

Sam sighs and leans back, arms crossed. “So it’s a smart bear. I don’t know, Dean.”

Dean leans forward, elbows on the table, and looks at his brother almost pleadingly. “Sammy, if you don’t get me out of this bunker in the next 24 hours, I swear to _God_ —”

“I get it,” Sam cuts him off with a huff, then pauses and sighs again. “Look, if you’re really that stir-crazy, call Jody. I think Claire and Kaia are tracking a vamp nest through Nebraska.”

He is _way_ too old to be third wheeling on 20-somethings (especially _Claire_ ), and Sam knows this. Dean stares at his brother, incredulous, until he breaks. “What.”

“I’m not gonna just— _really,_ Sam?”

Sam actually rolls his eyes. “If that’s not good enough for you, can always help me and Cas archive,” he points out, which isn't _quite_ as bad as crashing your sorta-kid's couples hunt, but is close. Dean glowers.

“Tempting, but I’ll pass.” He’s pushing himself out of his chair and reaching to take his laptop back from Sam when Cas walks into the library, arms filled with the next set of old books to categorize, and when he smiles at Dean it’s so fond that he doesn’t have the heart to be irritated about losing another day with him to their archiving project.

“You nerds have fun,” he grumbles, but there’s no heat behind it, and he squeezes Cas’ shoulder as he leaves.

Well. No heat directed at Cas, at least. Sam, though—“ _Just a smart bear, Dean,”_ he mocks to himself when he’s back in his bedroom, staring glumly at the Netflix loading screen. He gets 10 minutes into their newest gimmicky dating show before he’s closing his laptop with a huff and stomping down to the shooting range.

He recounts the whole scene to Cas later, when they’re changing for bed—because complaining while getting ready for bed is a thing they do, now—and Cas just hums placatingly as they climb under the comforter. He thinks that’s the end of it until, when he’s almost asleep, he feels a puff of air at the back of his neck as Cas sighs. “It _is_ a pity. I’d like to see the mountains.”

Dean can’t help but huff out a laugh. “Dude. Weren’t you alive when they formed?”

Cas goes entirely still, arms loosening around Dean’s waist. “It’s different now,” he replies, quietly, and Dean immediately feels like an asshole. “Human,” he clarifies, as if Dean would miss that part.

Dean isn’t sure what to say to that, so he doesn’t. Instead, he laces his fingers with Cas’, presses a soft kiss against their joined knuckles, and pulls him back closer. “I know,” he mumbles, after a long pause. Cas squeezes his hand, and they fall asleep.

* * *

The next morning Dean is ready for Sam in the kitchen, armed with eggs and toast and Twitter. He waits until Sam accepts breakfast before launching into it. “We gotta go to Aspen.”

Sam pauses mid-bite and rolls his eyes. He swallows and fixes Dean with a _look_. “Dude—”

Dean cuts him off with a shake of his head. “No, man, _look_.” He slides his phone across the table. “A dozen sightings of this thing in the past week.”

“I didn’t know you were on Twitter,” Sam frowns, either missing the point or ignoring it.

“Claire,” he explains, then sighs. “Look. We’ll just go check it out, alright? If it’s harmless we leave it alone, if it’s a bear we leave it alone _and_ I’ll help archive the library for a week.”

Sam looks incredulous. “You’re really going to risk archive duty _and_ drive nine hours for this?”

Dean looks down. He shrugs. “I was thinking, uh. You’re always going on about us needing a vacation, right? So let’s say this doesn’t shake out—or if it does, but it’s painless—I figured we could hang around a bit. You can grab Eileen, we’ll call Jack down from God duty, and…you know. Relax.” He looks back up at Sam, who looks even more confused.

“But…you hate snow.”

“I hate _shoveling_ it,” Dean corrects.

“Okay…” Sam continues, slowly. “When was the last time you were on a mountain? Like, by choice?”

And, what? Dean’s not allowed to have new hobbies, now?

“I don’t know, Sam,” he snaps, and it comes out more frustrated than he intended. “Probably before I almost _died._ Before Cas actually did die. Before Jack blew up and then became God and Eileen disappeared and reappeared and you had the whole—” he gestures vaguely at his own shoulder, “—shooting God thing. Come on, man, we deserve a break.”

 _And I want to see the look on Cas’ face when he takes his first human breath of mountain air,_ he thinks. _And mountains are important to him so maybe they’re important to me now, too._ _And maybe almost dying, again, made me realize I kinda want to actually live._

_Maybe I just want to go on a goddamn vacation with my goddamn family. _

He doesn’t say any of that, but somewhere along the line, Sam’s expression has shifted from confusion into something softer. He takes a deep breath before speaking. “Okay.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Sam shrugs and turns his attention back to his eggs. “I’ll text Eileen. We can leave after breakfast.”

Dean blinks at him. “Okay.” He nods and begins to stand. “I’ll, uh. I’ll go tell Cas.”

They load up the car and take off just after 10—Cas is in the passenger seat, leaning grumpily into Dean’s side and nursing a full thermos of coffee, relegating Sam to the back. They swing by Eileen’s and all traces of Sam pouting about seating arrangements disappear when she climbs in next to him and greets him with a kiss. Dean watches them in the rearview and smiles, and Cas squeezes his hand across the bench seat.

It’s over nine hours to Aspen, but they’ve done worse in one go. Dean automatically loses the fight for the music when Cas says he actually _likes_ the Christmas songs they’re playing on every local radio station, but he gets quietly sad at Angels We Have Heard on High and Dean can’t even feel smug about switching back to his rock cassettes. Cas stays that way, just kind of watching the world pass in silence, until they stop at as gas station for fuel (both for them and the car) and Dean sucks it up and asks for peppermint syrup in one of the awful gas station coffees.

“Better than molecules, yeah?” he asks, as Cas sighs into the warmth of the coffee, and he gives Dean one of those small smiles meant only for him.

“Thank you,” he says, and it’s not just about the coffee.

They pull up to the mountain cabin they’d splurged on (although it’s not really splurging if they used Charlie’s hacked card) just past 8pm. The impala’s wheels immediately sink into the soft snow covering the driveway, and Dean grimaces looking at it, but he doesn’t have time to worry too much—not when Jack is waving to them from the porch.

They haven’t seen him since he became God—which is still a weird thing to say about your three-year-old—but there he is, as if no time has passed at all. Sam is the first one up the steps, long legs taking them two at a time to crush the kid into a bear hug. “It’s good to see you, Jack,” Dean hears him greet quietly, and then he’s stepping aside to let Cas through. Cas, who—holy _shit_ , Dean realizes—hasn’t seen Jack since he _died_. He’d come back from the Empty and they’d had to tell him that Jack wasn’t dead but he was gone, and he was also, well. God.

It had been rough.

Cas stares at Jack for a long second, looking for words, before giving up entirely and reaching out to pull his son into a tight hug. Dean can see Jack smile over his shoulder even from where he is by the car. “Welcome back, Cas,” he says, and Cas laughs and squeezes his shoulder as he pulls away.

Then it’s just Dean and Eileen, who was the only one who stayed back to help him carry groceries in from the car (later, they’ll tease both their boyfriends for being unhelpful).

He knows even less of what to say than Cas did, and he’s reaching out for the standard shoulder pat, but—“It’s okay, Dean,” Jack says, and Dean drops his bag of groceries to pull the kid— _his_ kid—into a hug as tight as the last two.

Eileen pauses to greet Jack too but Dean continues on into the small cabin, where Sam and Cas are crouched by the fireplace trying to start a fire. “I remember when humans discovered fire. You’ve come so far since then,” Cas muses, flicking the wand lighter off and on, and Sam nearly drops the wood he’s trying to stack.

Dean smiles as he passes them, hauls the groceries to the kitchen counter and pulls out a six pack. When he returns to the living room the fire is lit, and Jack and Eileen have joined them, and the quiet comfort of _family_ and _wholeness_ has settled into the air.

Jack apologizes for not visiting sooner—he needed to make sure Heaven was stable first, but he happily reports that upstairs is secure enough to leave for a few days. “How do you feel?” Cas asks, and Jack shrugs. “I feel like me. Just more…connected.”

“To?” this is Sam.

“To everything. And all time. All at once.” He furrows his brow. “At first, it was overwhelming, but now…” he looks around at their small circle and smiles. “Now I understand.”

Cas looks so proud he might burst, and Sam smiles and leans across the sofa to clap him on the shoulder. “That’s really great, Jack.”

Everything goes back to normal, after that. Dean makes burgers and Sam over-spikes the eggnog and after dinner they eat the grocery-store berry pie without cutting it into slices. It’s not quite Christmas but it’s the closest they’ve gotten in years, even with Mrs. Butters—which _looked_ the part but still didn’t feel quite right.

Jack doesn’t sleep anymore but the other four do, and despite pitching this as a vacation Dean is still determined to prove that the thing in the woods is _not_ a bear (“ _it’s not, Sam.” “So, what, It’s a Yeti?” “No. Yeti only live in the Himalayas.” “Wait, Cas, hold on—Yetis exist?” “Yes, but not in Colorado.” …. “Exactly. So it’s a bear.”_ ) even without any of his family backing him up, so they all trudge off to bed with the promise of Dean proving them all wrong tomorrow.

“It’s _not_ a bear,” Dean grumbles into the dark of their bedroom, not caring that he sounds like a broken record. “Okay, Dean,” Cas sighs against his chest, already half asleep, and it’s so close to the _yes, dear_ stereotype that it only irritates him more.

“It’s _not_ ,” Dean insists, and Cas actually lifts his head up to glare at him.

“We can figure that out _tomorrow_.”

Dean takes the hint.

* * *

The next morning, though, Dean is ready to investigate. _Seriously_ investigate—or, at least, as serious as they can be on the snowmobiles they had to rent because he didn’t want to risk moving Baby in the snow. They hang around the main lodge of the resort, posing as first-timers looking for tips on what parts of the slope to avoid. They finally hit the jackpot with a couple of middle-aged women who are simultaneously warm and welcoming, and eager to gossip over cups of hot chocolate. They go through the standard spiel about easy hills for beginners, but then one of them (the one on the right, named Amy) leans in conspiratorially. “I’d stay clear of the eastern slopes, though. If I were you.”

 _Bingo_. Dean raises his eyebrows and leans back. “Oh, yeah? What’s over there.”

“I know it sounds crazy—”

“It _is_ crazy,” the woman next to her—Carolyn—pipes in, and Amy shushes her before continuing.

“—but there’s a monster over there. I’ve seen it.”

“Huh.” Dean eyes them in mock suspicion. “We’ve heard some rumors of weird sightings, but kinda thought it was just bears.”

Amy widens her eyes and shakes her head. “Oh, no. We come here every year, and we’ve _never_ seen bear activity like this. Besides, I saw it—it walked on two feet. And it was _big_. And white.”

Dean turns very slowly to raise his eyebrows at Sam, but he waits until they’re outside to say “I told you so.”

"Could still be a bear," Sam grumbles, with the air of a man who knows he's lost. Dean chucks his empty cocoa cup into a nearby trash can. 

"Yeah? Let's find out."

They take the snowmobiles up to the eastern slope, the exact place Amy had warned them _not_ to go, and—

“Holy shit.” It’s Sam who finds the tracks.

The other four trail over to where he’s crouching in the snow, full gloved hand pressed into the footprint. And it _is_ a footprint—humanoid, but larger. And broader, and shorter, with a larger big toe. When Cas sees it his eyes widen and he crouches next to Sam, reaching out to trace the outline of the print with his bare fingers. When he stands back up, he’s frowning.

“These are fresh. We need to follow them.”

“Cas, what—” Dean starts, but he’s already starting deeper into the woods.

The rest of them share an uneasy glance. Eileen is the first to shrug and start after him, but Dean passes her as he shrugs to catch up. “Cas—hold up.”

Cas doesn’t slow down, but he acknowledges Dean with a sidelong glance.

“What are we walking into?”

Cas sighs. “I spent some time in the Himalayas a few centuries ago. I know those prints.”

Dean stares at him. “You mean—the Yeti thing was a _joke_.”

“Apparently not.”

“It was a while ago, right? Maybe you’re remembering wrong—”

Dean knows it was the wrong thing to say as soon as Cas stops walking and turns to glare at him. “My memory is immaculate. I have no idea why, but there _is_ a Yeti somewhere in these woods.”

“So, what. We’re just walking into the lair of the _abominable snowman?_ ”

Dean only notices the others have caught up when Sam cuts in. “Woah, what about the abominable snowman?”

“Cas says it’s a Yeti.”

“In _Colorado?_ ”

Cas turns to face the rest of the group, still frowning. “Exactly.”

“That’s not right,” this is Jack, looking genuinely confused. “I mean—you’re right, but you _shouldn’t_ be.”

Sam sighs. “Okay, well, we need a game plan, right? We can’t just walk into—"

“—Guys?” Eileen cuts him off, and they all turn to follow her pointed finger, just in time to see a small figure duck back behind a tree.

Well—it’s not _small._ It’s the same size as Eileen, at least, probably taller. But it’s certainly not the giant Dean had been anticipating.

Cas takes a step forward. “Cas—” Dean starts, but he’s shushed before he can keep going.

Instead, Cas starts speaking in low tones, a language he can’t identify (“Tibetan,” Jack supplies, helpful as ever) and eventually, the creature peaks out from behind the tree. Then, slowly, it creeps towards them. Cas is crouched a bit, as if talking to a child—which is odd, considering this thing is the size of an adult human—and he reaches out a hand. The Yeti looks around at the rest of the group before cautiously taking it.

Cas stands up, smiling, and then Dean is looking at his boyfriend, former-angel-of-the-Lord Castiel, holding hands with a Himalayan cryptid.

“It’s young,” Cas says, as if this explains everything. “And terrified. It won’t hurt us.”

“Why is it _here?_ ” Sam asks, and Cas sighs.

“I wish I knew. I just told it I’d get it home.”

“I can do that,” Jack pipes up, but when he takes a step forward the Yeti drops Cas’ hand and backs up, growling softly. Jack frowns. “It doesn’t trust me.”

Cas looks between Jack and the Creature. “We’ll take it back with us. Once it knows it’s safe, it’ll warm up to you.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “You’re gonna drag that thing back to our _rental cabin?_ ”

Cas looks at him as if he’d just asked the dumbest question in the world. “Of course not. We’re taking the snowmobiles.”

* * *

“How did it _get_ here,” Cas asks again, later, as he’s pacing back and forth in the living room of their cabin. The Yeti is in the corner, chewing on a steak Dean had been planning on cooking for dinner, but it’s kept it calm for the past hour, and that’s all they can hope for.

Dean, who is knee-deep in Himalayan folklore, sighs without looking up from his laptop. “That’s the million-dollar question, buddy.”

“A plane?” Jack offers, and Cas shakes his head.

“A Yeti couldn’t just walk onto a commercial flight, and customs would have caught a stowaway at the border.”

Sam looks up from where he and Eileen are scouring the internet for sightings in any other parts of the US. “What if it wasn’t a commercial flight? What if it was a—uh, charter flight? Or private plane?”

Cas pauses. “Yes, but they’d have to _find_ it, and then capture it, and then—" a look of horror dawns on him. “Snow leopards.”

Dean frowns at the non-sequitur. “What?”

“Snow leopards—native to the Himalayas. They’re poached and trafficked globally.”

Sam gets it first. “You’re saying these could be human poachers who just…ended up with a _Yeti?_ ”

Cas nods. “Yes. One too young and scared to hurt them.”

A sick feeling creeps into Dean’s stomach, Jack looks genuinely distressed, and Eileen has brought a hand up to cover her mouth.

“We have to stop them,” Jack is already rising from his chair. “Snow leopards are nearly endangered, we can’t just—"

“Oh. Jack,” Cas starts, in his kind voice, reserved for teachable moments with hard lessons. “We don’t know where they are, if they even had leopards, if it’s not too late—” 

“So we _find out_ ,” Jack snaps, and it’s a moment where Dean isn’t sure if he should be frightened of God or irritated at his kid for talking back.

Eileen elbows Sam in the side and signs something to him, and Sam sighs and nods. “Maybe Jack is right. If we’re going to save _that_ animal,” he gestures to the Yeti, “we might as well save the rest of them. At least turn the poachers in to the authorities.”

“What if there’s more than one?” Dean pipes up, and they all turn to look at him. “I mean—this thing’s basically a _baby,_ right? I know these things are reclusive, but. Would a baby really be all alone out there?”

“If they’d tried to take a baby in front of it’s mother, they wouldn’t have gotten out alive,” Cas points out, and Dean shrugs.

“Yeah, but. Look, I know we normally _hunt_ things, not protect them, but these guys have stayed hidden for _centuries_. They’ve gotta be, like. _Mega-_ endangered. And that’s without getting into all the folklore about what they mean spiritually. Cops find one, they’ll end up being poached too. It ain’t work the risk.”

Cas blinks at him, then nods. He turns back towards Jack, who visibly relaxes a bit, and nods again. “You’re right. All of you.” He crosses his arms. “We need to find that plane.”

Dean grins. “I’ll call Charlie.”

* * *

“You want me to hack into the FAA to track a private flight from Nepal carrying multiple snow leopards and at _least_ one Yeti.” Charlie, eyebrows raised in the tiny Skype window on Dean’s laptop, looks unimpressed.

Dean glares at her. “You saying you can’t do it?”

Charlie rolls her eyes. “I hacked NORAD in high school. I can _do_ it.” She sighs. “And I probably shouldn’t be surprised by anything, at this point. Okay,” she nods. “I’ll get you deets in an hour or two.”

She signs off, and that gives them an hour or two to prepare for whatever wild snow leopard/Yeti rescue mission they’re facing, which means it’s time for more coffee. He brings a mug to Cas and slides down the wall to sit next to him on the floor—he’s with the Yeti, who still doesn’t trust anyone else. Cas accepts the coffee with an appreciative smile and leans instinctively into Dean’s shoulder.

There’s not much to do, really—the plan is pretty basic; find wherever these poachers are, take them out, take off with the Yeti (if there is one) and leave the leopards for the local authorities. Jack takes the Yetis back to the Himalayas, where they belong, and…all is well.

Easy. Quick and clean. They should do animal rescues more often.

But until Charlie updates them, there’s nothing they can do. So Dean sits against the wall, with Cas, drinking their coffee, and when he drains the mug he presses a kiss to Cas’ temple before climbing up to go make lunch.

Charlie calls him back halfway through eating his sandwich. “What do you have for me?” he greets, mouth still full, and she wrinkles her nose but doesn’t say anything.

“Lucky for you, there was only private plane recorded in U.S. airspace, traveling from Nepal, landing within 500 miles of Aspen in the past week. It landed in Rawlins, Wyoming last Tuesday.”

Tuesday. Two days before the first sighting. Perfect.

Dean grins. “Thanks. Text me the address.”

Charlie nods, then sighs. “You know, none of _my_ hunts ever turn out to be Yeti rescue missions.”

“I’ll let you know if there’s another one,” Dean promises, and hangs up. His phone buzzes with the exact address—a warehouse outside of town.

It’s a five hour drive. He groans. They’d make it, but it's already getting dark. They’d go in blind. Unless—

“Hey, Sam? You think Claire and Kaia are still in Nebraska?”

“Should be,” Sam responds without looking up.

Dean calls Claire.

“How close are you to, uh—Rawlins, Wyoming?”

“Hello to you, too,” she snarks, but then audibly moves the phone away from her ear to repeat Dean’s question to Kaia. There’s a shuffling, and a response he can’t hear, but then—“Kaia says three hours.”

Dean sighs in relief. “Great. We’re five out, I’ll text you the address and meet you there.”

He’s about to hang up, but Claire protests on the other end and he reluctantly raises the phone to his ear again. “Burning daylight, Claire.”

“We’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s in Wyoming,” she shoots back, and Dean sighs.

“Poachers.”

There’s a pause. “Like. Monster poachers, or people poachers?”

“Snow leopard poachers.”

There’s a longer pause this time. “As much as I’m all for animal conservation, isn’t that more of a call for someone like Jody than for us?”

“It would be,” Dean grumbles back, “if they hadn’t somehow kidnapped a Yeti.”

“A _what_ -i.”

“A Yeti,” Dean confirms, and gives no time for more questions. “Listen, I just need you to case the joint, okay? Let us know what we’re walking into.”

There’s a heavy sigh. “Yeah, okay.”

“See you in Wyoming.” Dean hangs up.

* * *

When Dean had convinced Sam to let them take this case, this wasn’t what he had in mind. Somehow, the possibility that he’d be barreling down the highway on his way to save snow leopards on the off chance they’d walked away with more than one Yeti—more than one because the first one was still at their cabin Sam’s girlfriend, his ex-angel boyfriend and his son, who was simultaneously 3 years old and _God Himself_ —hadn’t occurred to him.

Claire calls them three hours in with the basics—they found the place, looks like there’s only two guys, they’re right on time because she overheard them talking about moving “the cargo” later tonight, and—yeah, there’s another Yeti.

She also tells him she and Kaia are staking out the warehouse until they get there.

“What? No,” Dean leans closer to his phone, which Sam put on speaker. “Head back to Nebraska, we can handle this.”

Claire scoffs. “There is _no_ way we’re missing you _rescuing a Yeti._ And we cleared the nest we were tracking yesterday, anyway.”

Dean pauses. “I’ll call Jody.”

“Already did. She says hi.”

Damn. That was his only ammo. “…Fine. But _stay in the car._ ”

“Yes, _Dad,_ ” she replies, and she’s being sarcastic, but it warms his heart anyway. 

They pull up to the warehouse a few hours later, park the impala out of sight, and Dean sneaks up without warning to rap on the window of her red car. He’d feel bad for laughing at the way she jumps if Kaia didn’t also laugh from the passenger seat. Claire glares at her girlfriend, then turns the icy stare on Dean as she rolls down the window.

“Took you long enough,” she grumbles, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s good to see you too. Now open up,” he knocks on one of the back windows. “We’re staking out with you.”

Claire stares at him. “You are _not_ getting in my car.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not risking Baby’s paint job in a shootout.”

“A shoot— _come on,_ ” She turns to Kaia for support, but Kaia just shrugs.

“He won’t go away until you let him in,” she points out, and Claire groans.

“Fine,” she bites out, but the back door lock clicks open anyway. Dean grins as he yanks the door open and climbs in, and Sam mumbles a sheepish _hey, Claire_ as he folds his long legs into the car next to him.

There’s an awkward silence.

“Remind me,” Claire breaks it, “why we aren’t just going in, getting the Yeti and calling the cops to deal with the leopards?”

“You said they were moving ‘em tonight, right? I don’t want to risk the cops missing it.”

“Huh.” Claire pauses, considering something. “Yeah, I mean. It’s kinda nice, you know.”

“What is?”

She shrugs. “Just, you know. Not killing something, for once.”

It hits him in a way it probably shouldn't, and it's suddenly all Dean can do to just hum in agreement and let the silence fall again—heavier, but somehow more comfortable.

It lasts until a white van pulls onto the lot, and two men climb out, and then—then it’s go time.

* * *

The extraction is quick because two human men, even with guns, are no match for four hunters. They leave them tied up but alive, and tip off both the authorities and the local animal control about the four leopards. The Yeti, which is smaller than the one back at the cabin but still straining at the bars of its cage, struggles as the four of it haul it into the impala. Dean’s heart aches for it, but without Cas’ soothing words they know they won't be able to calm it down and can't risk opening the cage.

“Just a few more hours, buddy,” he says to it in what he hopes is a calming voice, and Sam spends the trip back feeding it strips of steak from the passenger seat.

It’s nearly 4am when they get back, and all Dean wants to do is crawl into bed, but the caged Yeti in the backseat (and the other one in the cabin) demand more immediate attention. As it is Cas is already appearing at the car as soon as Dean turns off the ignition—without even saying hello he yanks open the car door and then the cage, and attempts to coax the creature out in the same soothing tone he’d used for the first one. It doesn’t work, though—the scared Yeti curls into the back of its cage, teeth bared, not moving.

But then there’s a soft noise from behind Cas, closer to a whine than a growl, and suddenly the smaller Yeti is clawing its way out of the car and past Cas to throw itself at the larger one, who’d followed him out of the cabin. Dean watches through the car window as the two hug, and he smiles. He’s seen that before. _Family_ , he thinks.

The smaller one looks like it’s about three seconds away from sprinting into the woods and never coming back, but the bigger one makes a soft noise and looks at Jack, who'd wandered out of the cabin after it. He steps forward and reaches out a hand, the Yeti takes it, and Jack smiles. “I’ll be right back,” he promises, and then…disappears.

Finally, Dean gets out of the car, and Sam follows. Behind them, Claire and Kaia—who followed them back because they still have the cabin for two days, and Dean decided they also deserve a break—pull into the driveway.

“They bonded,” Cas explains, as if Jack being buddies with the Yeti was the weirdest thing about this situation.

“It was beautiful,” Eileen ads, and Dean feels a little bit bad about not noticing her appear next to Sam. He leans back against the car and looks around, surveying the notably Yeti-less space. _What a day._

“Well,” he sighs. “It wasn’t a bear.”

It takes a moment but then Sam laughs, and then Eileen laughs, and even Cas grins, one of the rare ones that shows his gums, and he (finally) crosses the driveway to slip his hand into Dean’s. Claire and Kaia share a confused look but join in as the laughter grows, and when they’re _still_ laughing by the time Jack returns from the Himalayas (where the Yeti were safely reunited with their family), it’s a sign they all need to head to sleep.

“It was nice,” Dean tells Cas, later, beginning the nightly ritual of only being able to talk about his feelings when one or both of them is half asleep (he’s _working_ on it, okay). Cas hums and props himself up on his elbows, realizing this is going to be an actual talk.

“What was?”

“Just, you know. Saving things.”

“You save lots of people, Dean,” Cas points out, and Dean frowns.

“Yeah, but that usually comes with the ‘hunting things’ part.” He sighs. “I dunno, man. It was just _nice_ , you know? To just…swoop in and save things. We left the criminals tied up for the cops and everything. I felt like _Batman._ ”

“You are Batman.”

Dean scoffs.

“You _are_ ,” Cas insists, and he’s frowning when Dean glances at him. “You are a wonderful man and you do wonderful things. You didn’t kill anything because you didn’t _have_ to. But you also didn’t have to help, or drag us up here in the first place, and you did both.”

Dean can feel his cheeks heating up with the praise. He looks away. “Thanks, Cas.” He mumbles.

“I love you,” Cas replies, voice heavy with sincerity, and Dean rolls back to face him to pull him down into a kiss.

The next morning, Dean makes them all pancakes. Claire and Kaia take off with two of the snowmobiles down to the slopes so Kaia and show Claire how to snowboard, and Sam and Eileen take the other one because they’ve suddenly discovered a joint passion for skiing, so Dean and Cas and Jack stay behind to make snowmen and snow angels ( _“I don’t understand this obsession with angels wearing robes,” Cas complains, and then Dean presses a kiss to his cheek and says “I think you’d look great in a robe,” and then Jack comes back around the house talking about finding the perfect sticks for his snowman arms)._

By the time the other four come back they’ve made a small army of snowmen and there’s hot chocolate on the stove. Dean spikes it with peppermint schnapps and puts on Die Hard, claiming something about how cooking gives him first movie choice and everyone should shut up anyway because Die Hard is the _best_ Christmas movie. He curls into Cas' side on the couch, watches Nakatomi Plaza explode, and feels warmer than he has in a long time.

When the movie ends, and chaos erupts over the merits of _Elf_ vs. _The Santa Clause,_ Cas excuses himself and slips from his place at Dean’s side out onto the porch.

Dean follows him, of course. Like always.

“Hey, Frosty.” He leans against the railing next to Cas, close enough that their shoulders brush. “How’s that mountain air feel in your human lungs?”

Cas turns to smile at him, and he’s not sad, like he’d feared. “Good,” he answers, completely honestly. “I like it here. I like the mountains, as a human.”

“Do they feel different?”

Cas hums. “Knowing I won’t be alive to watch them erode, or to watch more form…” he pauses. “They feel more permanent.” He turns to Dean, smiling. “Thank you for risking archive duty to come out here.”

Will Ferrell's voice drifts out from inside, meaning Elf has won the battle.

Dean shrugs and slings the arm not holding the cocoa around Cas’ shoulders. “Nah,” he replies, even though they both know he would have taken _two_ weeks of archive duty if it meant bringing Cas somewhere he wanted to go. “I _knew_ it wasn’t a bear.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope I wasn't too inaccurate with the FAA/Yetis/Ski resorts. Come say hi on tumblr @dreamnovak :)


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